Juvenile held in shooting could be tried as an adult

GRAHAM — The Alamance County District Attorney’s Office plans to try a 14-year-old charged with shooting and beating a Burlington woman as an adult.

At the boy’s first appearance in juvenile court Thursday, a prosecutor described the crime and the woman’s injuries as particularly severe.

That woman, 61-year-old Deborah Wilson, was attacked as she left her Lakeside Avenue home. Her assailant shot her three times in the abdomen and neck with a pellet gun. Then he hit her in the head with the gun “so hard it broke in half,” Assistant District Attorney Brandon Ector said.

Police also recovered Wilson’s hair from the broken weapon, Ector said. She remained hospitalized Thursday.

The boy, whose name the Times-News isn’t releasing until a decision is reached on whether he will be tried as an adult, is in juvenile custody, charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.

A probable cause hearing on his juvenile status is set for Aug. 21. At that hearing, a judge will determine whether the case can be moved to Superior Court.

Thursday’s hearing was to determine the boy’s custody status. Ector asked District Court Judge Katie Overby to keep him in detention, based on the charge and the boy’s record, which includes separate convictions for simple assault and larceny of a motor vehicle. The boy’s probation ended in February, Ector said.

Defense attorney Deborah Huynh argued for electronic monitoring and said the boy’s mother is at home and could watch him.

Huynh said her defense would include alibis from three teens who say they were with him at the time of the assault, and the boy’s parents, who claim he was at home at the time. The parents and those witnesses were in court Thursday morning.

“It is inconceivable to them that he did this,” Huynh said.

One key piece of evidence in the case is a blue and black tennis shoe the attacker left at the scene. Burlington police used that shoe to identify the teen and charge him Wednesday.

Huynh said the teen’s parents have the left shoe and that police have the right shoe.

“But that left shoe is clean, it is perfect. It doesn’t have blood or dirt on it like the right shoe,” Huynh told the court.

Overby ordered that the boy remain in secure custody. He will appear weekly in juvenile court for hearings on his custody status to determine whether he remains in custody or is released on electronic monitoring.